Everyone should know this fact: almost half of all sex crimes reported to police eventually turn out to be fabrications by the accusers own admission. This does not include the percentage that never own up to it.
Posted on 06/16/2007 1:28:45 PM PDT by stinkerpot65
Edited on 06/16/2007 4:05:02 PM PDT by Admin Moderator. [history]
Nifong Accepts Disbarment David Freedman, Mike Nifong's attorney, has just announced that Nifong has accepted that disbarment is an "appropriate" penalty, and has accepted both disbarment and waived the right to appeal.
(AP) RALEIGH, N.C. District Attorney Mike Nifong will be disbarred for his disastrous prosecution of three Duke University lacrosse players falsely accused of rape, a disciplinary committee decided Saturday. Even the veteran prosecutor said the punishment was appropriate.
"This matter has been a fiasco. There's no doubt about it," said committee chairman F. Lane Williamson.
Nifong sat motionless, one hand resting over his mouth, as Williamson recounted how he engaged in dishonest and deceitful conduct. He said Nifong's early comments about the case — which included a confident proclamation that he wouldn't allow Durham to become known for "a bunch of lacrosse players from Duke raping a black girl" — were purposefully designed to boost his campaign for district attorney.
"At the time he was facing a primary, and yes, he was politically naive," Williamson said. "But we can draw no other conclusion that those initial statements he made were to further his political ambitions."
Nifong will not appeal the punishment, his lawyer said.
"He hopes this helps restore some of the confidence in the criminal justice system of North Carolina," said attorney David Freedman.
"On one hand, it's very devastating. On the other hand, he's been going through this process for a long time, so you always have some semblance of relief when the process is over with regardless of the outcome."
The North Carolina State Bar charged Nifong with breaking several rules of professional conduct, including lying to both the court and bar investigators and withholding critical DNA test results from the players' defense attorneys.
The committee, after deliberating for a little more than an hour on Saturday, unanimously agreed with the bar on almost every charge — including the most serious allegations — that Nifong's actions involved "dishonesty, fraud, deceit and misrepresentation."
State Bar prosecutor Douglas Brocker told the committee that as Nifong investigated the allegations that a stripper was raped and beaten at a March 2006 party thrown by Duke's lacrosse team, he charged "forward toward condemnation and injustice," weaving a "web of deception that has continued up through this hearing."
"Mr. Nifong did not act as a minister of justice, but as a minister of injustice," Brocker said.
The verdicts and the punishment did not appear to surprise Nifong, who acknowledged during sometimes tearful testimony Friday that he would likely be punished for getting "carried away a little bit" when talking about the case.
During Saturday's closing arguments, Williamson repeatedly interrupted Nifong's attorney, Dudley Witt, as he discussed the DNA testing.
Williamson questioned why it took several months for the defense to get DNA test results that found genetic material from several men in the accuser's underwear and body, but none from any lacrosse player.
"It wasn't just one little oversight," Williamson said later. "This was conduct over an extended period in a very high-profile case."
Aware of those test results, Nifong pressed ahead with the case anyway and won indictments against Dave Evans, Reade Seligmann and Collin Finnerty. State prosecutors later concluded the three players were "innocent" victims of a rogue prosecutor's "tragic rush to accuse."
Nifong made "multiple, egregious mistakes" as he pursued the charges, but not intentionally, his attorney said in closing statements.
"It didn't click," Witt said as he tried to explain one of his client's errors. "His mind is just his mind. That's the way it works. It just didn't click."
Brocker said Nifong had to have known he was making improper comments to reporters. Nifong said he regretted some of his statements, including a confident proclamation that he wouldn't allow Durham to become known for "a bunch of lacrosse players from Duke raping a black girl."
He also focused on when Nifong learned about the full extent of the DNA test results and when he shared that information with the defense.
Nifong gave defense attorneys an initial report on the DNA testing in May 2006 that said private lab DNA Security Inc. had been unable to find a conclusive match between the accuser and any lacrosse players.
But lab director Brian Meehan testified this week that he told Nifong as early as April 10, 2006 — a week before Seligmann and Finnerty were indicted — about the more detailed test results.
Nifong testified that when he gave the defense the initial report, he "believed at the time that I had given them everything."
The disciplinary hearing committee had the choice of suspending Nifong's law license or taking it away entirely.
Nifong told the panel hearing the case Friday that he would resign from his post as Durham County district attorney over his handling of the rape charges.
The players' attorneys have pledged to seek criminal contempt charges next week in Durham.
Duke University and, especially, the committe of 88, deserve to be punished in the extreme. As an outsider watching this play out, I can only hope that the lawyers for the innocent don’t screw up here. Duke University, under it’s current president, threw those students under the bus without a single bit of convincing evidence. The actions of Duke University supported and contributed to Nifong’s plan to frame those boys for his personal advancement. The committee of 88, those sad, sick, sorry excuses for a faculty, also deserve to be taken to the bar. They sought to further ingratiate themselves with minority interests at the expense of justice. They were more than willing to send to prison three innocent white men because that served their political agenda. Those faculty members are a disgrace, not only to an American university, but a disgrace to America, itself. If any of those low-life posers escape punishment, I will not sleep well for a very long time!
Everyone should know this fact: almost half of all sex crimes reported to police eventually turn out to be fabrications by the accusers own admission. This does not include the percentage that never own up to it.
Until a sentence on the other charges is handed down, let’s say he’s just swirling around in the outer fringe of the vortex.
It does indeed.
People are always whining and crying over the state of the nation as if they had nothing to do with it.
Guess What? You voted for them!
Keep voting for trash, you’ll get trash every time.
Any chance he can be sued for like say... $10 million?
More like Attorney General material in the Bush administration.
I just ignore those cunning runts......they will self destruct in their own good time.
The problem with that, Dr., is that a lot of the "people who you are voting for" are in fact, scum....and when you have a choice between scum and scum...you are going to get scum.....
the lesser of two evils...is still evil.
You get your info from DU?
Every time we vote the lesser of two evils, evil wins. The only option is to find, run and support good and honorable people.
A task Diogenes would find daunting I know, but one we have to get behind.
So what if everyone screams and flails around saying your candidate can’t win for whatever specious reason, unless we do something radical like running honest men for public office, we’ll keep getting people like Ted Kennedy and John McCain.
Or Mike “Hang Whitey” Nifong.
“Now what about the 88 “professors” who were part of the lynch mob?”
I don’t think they could be held culpable. They were largely going on what a rogue lying district attorney was saying.
That's reasonable. You put your vote behind a man, you should be held responsible for the trouble he causes. The moral of that story is know who you are voting for and don't elect scum.
Damn, you're good, Zoidberg! I totally agree.
Doesn't matter. Just because an attorney "says so" did not give the professors the right or duty to slam the kids.
“The scariest thing about this pig Nifong is that it took 3 million or so dollars to fight off his false charges.
Had it been me, I would be in prison and he would be sucking up the swill from the public troth. I don’t have money.”
A good point. You wonder how many Nifong sent up in cases where their was never national attention and where the defendant couldn’t hire a good attorney. Probably a lot.
The picture begs the question of why anyone would pay to see her naked? I haven’t been to a club of that kind since a bachelor party in my early 20s but we sure didn’t go to see girls like that. I’d pay not to see her naked.
* Felonious Assault with a Deadly Weapon on Police Officer, O2-CRS-49961
* Felonious Larceny and Felonious Possession of Stolen Vehicle charges, 02-CRS-49955
* Felonious Speeding to Elude Arrest, Driving while Impaired (.19 Blood Alcohol Content) and Driving while License Revoked, 02-CRS-49956
* Driving Left of Center, 02-CR-49958
* Failure to Heed Blue Light and Siren and Reckless Driving in Wanton Disregard to Rights or Safety of Others, 02-CR-49959
* Driving the Wrong Way on Dual Lane Highway and Open Container After Consuming Alcohol, 02-CR-49960
* two counts of Injury to Personal Property, 02-CR-49962-63
* Resisting a Public Officer, 02-CR-49964...
Ms. Mangum is a police psychology student with a 3.0 (B) grade average...
http://johnsville.blogspot.com/2006/04/duke-rape-accuser-crystal-gail-mangum.html
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